


Simple Gifts

by AngriestPotato



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Body Worship, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Porn with Feelings, happy Jihyun, i'm just tired of power dom Jumin alright, pretentious sexting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2020-12-01 22:26:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20918603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngriestPotato/pseuds/AngriestPotato
Summary: Jumin has never had any need for gifts, but he figures he can give a try to discovering all the things his wife is willing to give him.





	1. romance

It starts at breakfast, because of course it does. He’s been dodging this question for a few weeks now and she cares too much to let it go. Jumin knows it’s coming, but he really has no more answer than earlier when the RFA hounded him about it in the chat; so he just cuts another piece of his french toast and dips it in the dollop of whipped cream curiously shaped like a heart on his plate.

“What would you like for your birthday present?”

His wife –_wife_, he can’t get over it, not when this is the first birthday he spends in this new house with her– asks over the rim of a coffee cup, giving him half a smile, somehow affectionate and frustrated at once.

“I don’t need anything,” he repeats himself, adds “you already made breakfast for me.”

She sighs and it turns into laughter while she sets down her drained cup in favor of scratching behind Elizabeth’s ears with both hands.

“You don’t need to _need_ a gift, you just have to want it.”

Her argument comes with a gentle push of fur forward, so Elizabeth’s cheeks seem big enough to be comical and Jumin can’t help but lean forward to brush it back, meeting her hand over the table.

“I have you and Elizabeth III,” his voice is soft and he’s sure his eyes are even softer when they catch hers, “why does everyone want to give me useless gifts today?”

Jumin drops his fork outright to show her the chat, counts it as worth it just for the way her smile grows as she reads, until she’s chuckling at him.

“It’s your birthday, Jumin! It’s just what people do.”

He knows, he doesn’t say it, but he knows. He’s simply not used to planning around this day, which is why he’s up this early –she’s up this early with him, wearing his clothes– on a weekend. C&R’s launch of the season is late, more than a week at that, but he also never really cared about taking his birthday off.

“I should go,” he stands up, waits for her to set Elizabeth down and meet him at the door, watches as she rights his tie.

“Would you at least give a gift some thought?” she pleads, “Just to shut me up?”

Jumin bends to kiss her, cups her cheek. He seriously considers skipping work –launch be damned.

“I never want you to shut up, but I’ll think about it.”

And he does, during the car ride and in the spaces between checking the final print proofs; he tries to come up with something he can ask of the woman he loves that she isn’t already giving him. He draws a blank many times and his mind conjures up some very specific images in others; images of her in clothes he hasn’t bought for her, places he hasn’t taken her to yet. But he doesn’t think she’ll accept anything that implies receiving something from him as an appropriate gift.

He’s still mulling it over through the afternoon, when his phone rings to announce that his wife’s here to see him; Jaehee’s voice sounds a little hesitant on the other side of the line, which he assumes it’s because she wants whatever work’s still pending to be done as soon as possible. Jumin can sympathize, he’d love to get out of there himself, but he wants to see his wife and it’s his birthday after all.

She enters, in the process of assuring Jaehee that she’ll be quick, just needs to ask a question. By the time she laughs at an answer Jumin can’t hear, he’s already put aside the paperwork he’d been signing, moving to the couch so he can have her close in comfort.

“I was on my way back from checking a potential venue for the next party and I wanted to see you,” she explains, closing the door behind her, like he would ever be upset at her being here, ”Jaehee told me that the sooner you’re done, the sooner I’ll have you home and she makes a good point…”

Jumin hums in agreement as she leans in for a kiss, her hair feather soft against his cheek for a second before she pulls away again, to tap at her phone.

“...but I think a single song can’t hurt, right?”

He’s confused for as long as it takes for the first notes to drift from the phone she sets over the desk. A deceptively soft piano as a background for her to walk back to him and sit over his thighs; the melody welcomes an unexpected violin, starts a rhythm that her hands follow as she brushes the hair off the back of his neck, runs her fingers through it.

The gesture makes Jumin melt, makes his hands slide up her thighs, dip under her skirt; he surprises a giggle out of her and takes the opportunity to get his lips on her neck, press a kiss to the life that beats there. Her touch is tender still, drifts down to grab at his shoulders, pulling away from his chest to give him better access and there’s no way he isn’t taking advantage of that. He tries to keep kissing her, but he’s aware that it’s mostly just a dragging of his mouth downwards, sloppy and rushed and so familiarly intimate that it nearly breaks his heart to be this happy.

His wife –‘_wife, wife, wife_’ his inner monologue keeps time with her heartbeat, obsessed with the _promise_ of it all– sighs with the music, her body arches, breath expanding in her chest as the music builds. She says his name, a quiet whisper that threatens to drown out the entire orchestra, fills him with the love in her voice. He says her name too, twice, three times, until he’s forced to realize that the song is over by how clearly he can hear himself in the room.

“That was a very short song,” Jumin complains, pretty much mumbling against her collarbone.

“It’s almost seven minutes long,” she laughs, smiles at him like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“This,” he says, grabbing her hips as he thinks of the odd feeling of not being able to contain all she brings out in him, “I’ll count this as one of my gifts.”

“There’s more?”

“As many as you want to give me,” he holds her against him for another moment, eyes drifting to the paperwork, cursing himself for not being in the habit of celebrating.

“There’ll be more,” she repeats, and it’s another promise.


	2. sunlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the rosy-fingered dawn seems to love Jumin and to be honest she can't manage to fault him for it.

Jumin is really proud of the house; it’s her favorite thing about it, how he looks as if he has never seen anything as beautiful as the view from the bay windows: back terrace and trees and the sun rising slowly over them. And _him_, standing in the middle of the living room, quiet and still, so early that Elizabeth still snores away in her castle of a bed.

She’s supposed to be asleep too, Jumin is very particular about her being as comfortable as possible, unbothered as can be, but she likes the silence of the morning too, likes her husband in it. So she watches, half on the other side of the doorway, as the light reaches for him.

The sun is an extension of her longing, crawling over hardwood and painting patterns of leaves across Jumin’s legs and hands. He shifts, takes a step forward, and the sunlight starts a bold climb up his body; it kisses a stripe over his arms, following the line of the short sleeves he wears to bed.

Her breath catches at it, can’t help it, not when a patch of shadow calls her fingers to the sharp collarbones of the man she loves and the dawn pools in the dip at the base of his throat. His face turns into a chiaroscuro, glowing mouth and dark eyes while the whole room brightens in response, pink and peach and soft.

“Can’t sleep without me?” Jumin’s voice only adds to the spell, warm toned and warped by his smile.

“Not if I tried,” she concedes, stage whispering to avoid breaking the calm.

“Could I ask for another one of my gifts?” he says, offering out his hand for her.

All she does is nod, all she _can_ do is move to him, quiet and drowsy, magnet pulled until she wraps her arms around his waist. He’s been getting better at this, asking for what he wants, waiting for an answer. He sways them, hums, lashes turning brown and black and gold as they weave in and out of the reach of the sun.

She touches her mouth to him, reclaims the skin taken by the light: the edge of his jaw, the tender spot below his ear. His bottom lip even gets a hint of teeth; his back, the ghost of her nails, raising goosebumps where she sneaks her palms under his shirt. Jumin laughs at that, cups her hips with eyes narrowed like a content cat and stops only to kiss her in that hungry way of his that makes her dig her fingertips into his flesh.

“I regret ever badmouthing C&R’s ribbon slips.”

The comment feels like a non sequitur, which doesn’t really matter with his hands on her, tugging at her pajamas. But it clicks, belatedly, that he’s remembering one of their very first conversations, a phone call that seemed ages ago.

“Ah, growth,” it’s an honest attempt to tease on her part, despite how it comes out breathy, barely coherent as he slowly unbuttons her top.

“If I brought one, would you let me see you in it?”

This, he doesn’t have to ask, not really; he knows that the mental image of being completely naked under his gaze with the simple tug of a ribbon is so tempting that it pulls a whine out of her. She squirms at it, sweat breaking over her skin as the morning heats up and her husband’s touch turns bolder. His thumb catches on one of her nipples, circling it until it hardens so he can bend to cover it with his tongue.

“Yes, Jumin…”

She clings to his hips, dips her fingers under the elastic of his pants and tries not to buck her own body into his, not yet. She waits for Jumin to push the sleeves off her shoulders, to help her out of her shorts so she’s bare in his arms, pressed against the soft cotton of his clothes and the smell of his favorite soap. The hand that isn’t holding her by the waist dips between her legs, she moans even if it isn’t entirely erotic, mostly to check how she’s already wet for him. Jumin never did improve his hyper efficient bedside manner, all practicality, but it doesn’t bother her when he’s fighting his way out of his shirt through the laser focus of lust.

His pants end up down the hallway, a testament to how much he prefers sex in bed, stumbling and pausing along to grab at her before he finally has her under his weight, with his erection sliding over her stomach; groaning in time with her breathing.

The whisper of her name as he pushes steadily into her is still one of the most beautiful things she’s ever heard, an anchor to hold on to when he fills her, thrusting ‘til he can’t anymore and slowly pulling out. Rinse and repeat. He keeps the rhythm slow, a leisurely fuck on a lazy Sunday with the sunlight half turning him into a silhouette and dyeing the inside of her eyelids a soft yellow when he kisses her.

It feels like it takes forever, like this lasts for days; the constant pressure that builds and builds into a surprising orgasm, spreading to make her scalp tingle and her legs shake on either side of him, coaxing him closer, riding the high while he empties himself into her.

His fingers intertwine with hers even as Jumin melts boneless beside her, and he presses a chaste kiss to her shoulder, chuckling under his breath at the way she only hums in response and immediately curls into his chest to try and sleep in, now that she has him here to share that simple pleasure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this update took like 6 crying breaks but there's finally smut and now i actually like the title


	3. ausencias

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How many times, love, I loved you without seeing you.

The message freezes Jumin mid sip, the taste of champagne as an afterthought in the wake of his wife’s unique goodnight wishes.

Traveling was once one of his favorite little pleasures, the entire ritual of customs and foreign cities cleared his head, gave him the chance to get away for a minute. For a moment he was above it all, untethered, untangled.

And it’s not like it changed after the wedding; now he gets to see excitement in his wife’s eyes, even if her smile’s still nervous on planes. The problem is when she can’t travel with him, rare as that is. It makes him feel strangely disconnected, check his phone obsessively for any sign of her.

“She’s 8 hours ahead and probably asleep.”

Jihyun joins him, peeking over his shoulder at the screen, and Jumin can see a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes through the tinted glasses. They’re no longer fully dark but his sight’s still recovering, which in no way means he’ll take it easy, since Jumin’s life is not that simple. That’s the only reason they’re both in Paris of all places, because he doesn’t want to lose Jihyun again, not when the RFA finally managed to convince him into therapy.

“What?” Jihyun laughs at his state, herding him back into the half hearted pleasantries of the art world. The contacts in France that have turned out to be more than happy to help build a new career as a curator for V.

In Jumin’s hand is the picture of his bed, unmade, with his wife’s knees barely peeking into the frame. That’s not what he’s supposed to be paying attention to, he’s pretty sure, since the focus is on a square of blue stationery with a couple simple lines in her handwriting:

> _My love. My life.  
What I would give to be  
a sleeping body beside you._

“I don’t know how to respond to this,” it’s honest and a little lost, which makes his friend chuckle again.

“You’re in a gallery, Jumin. Send her something back, something that reminds you of her.”

He doesn’t fight it, doesn’t explain that it’s not that he has no words to tell her, but that this is a new game, another gift. It’s not that he can’t pick a scenery to respond but that it has to be just right, to say exactly what her message made him feel.

He wanders from the smiling women with dogs, to the smart eye of the artist in portrait, the snowy landscapes; reminds himself that she will probably forgive what he considers a clumsy response. What is important for her is to know he’s willing to play, so Jumin settles on flowers; if nothing but for how the splashes of color pop out of an impressionist confusion of foliage, like finding her face on a crowded street. Then he rejoins the pleasantries, laughs at Jihyun’s good natured ribbing and can’t help but like this trip a little bit more.

He dreams of her in a hotel bed too big for him, of the way she laughs when he brushes his fingers over the soft skin of the back of her knees. Wakes up feeling the ghostly pressure of her ankle on his shoulder, her taste in his mouth.

There’s a notification already waiting for him when he does, a video this time. Her face smiling at him, a breathless whisper of ‘hi, husband’ before she stands up to reveal more of that blue paper held at waist height as she cycles through several cards for the camera.

> _I fall for you._  
_I am falling for you._  
_I have fallen for you._  
_I feel for you._  
_I felt for you._  
_I fell for you._  
_I am felled for you._  
_For you._

Jumin doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until it all comes out of him in a rush. He could call her, repeat that first risqué night overseas, barely a few hours apart but so desperate for her. Not as desperate as now, but also not as pressed for time. He checks the clock, decides instead to take a few extra minutes in the shower so he can be at least some semblance of coherent when he meets Jihyun for breakfast in less than 45 minutes.

Which isn’t to say that the thought doesn’t torture him the entire day. The woman he loves, thinking of him, _only him_. Has she touched herself since he left? Clinging to his pillow the way she likes when pleasure gets overwhelming? It tightens his chest, the memory of her cheeks shining and flushed, the way she mouths his name as she comes around him, pulling him in.

It’s a decidedly indecent train of thought to have as he walks a museum, shadowing his best friend, but is the one he has; the one that drives him to snap a picture of stormy seas on canvas, looming threateningly over little painted boats.

He types ‘I miss you, this is how you make me feel all the time’. Adds ‘I masturbated in the shower to the thought of you’ and sends it before he can regret the confession.

The answer isn’t immediate as he hopes, it lets him wallow in suspense that he tries to hide as he follows Jihyun across rooms, listens to the abridged tour the curator gives them, finds a pause to send another picture.

Then it comes as V solidifies an invitation to a private collection merely meters away from him and Jumin damn near chokes on his impatience to open the message right that second.

She’s wearing the same kind of long black stockings that the second painting had, in the photo response; sure, the underwear is far more modern and she’s standing in front of the big mirror in their room as opposed to lying in bed, but her hand rests softly over her thigh the same way. It isn’t till he takes another look –far more discreet this time, with the excuse of taking a call–, that he notices the words on the surface of the mirror.

> _I beg you, eat me up. Want me down to the marrow_

“You look ruffled,” Jihyun comments as he catches up to him by the front entrance, “the world can’t survive without Jumin Han for a couple days?”

Jumin chuckles, a little winded but wholly, honestly happy.

Jihyun seems glad too, not a trace of sadness in his face even as the cab leaves them in a photographer’s atelier, their last stop. The perfect end to a short trip that promises more, starts to convince Jumin that maybe V is finally returning to a life he was once convinced he didn’t deserve.

It’s such a relief that Jumin waits to be alone in his suite again, after dinner, after completing a working plan of action for at least six months of exhibitions over a couple bottles of wine and old stories, to send his pick from the priceless collection of photographs.

‘Are you awake?’ he texts with the image of one of the world’s most famous kisses, in the heart of Paris, ‘Can I call you?’

She calls him instead, not a minute later, though he’s aware that for her it’s 8 in the morning.

“I miss you,” it’s the first thing she says, “I love you, but I know you’re not calling just for that.”

He laughs again, quietly, as he settles into bed so he can pretend that she’s beside him. Her sleep hoarse giggle meets him on the other side of the line and he can confess the hope in his heart, the nagging, soft footed fear that lives just behind it.

She promises to help him, not for him, but because he’s lucky, so lucky to have found someone who loves his friends too, for themselves, not their relation to him.

“I wish you were here with me,” Jumin can feel himself sinking into the pillows, content in the thought of almost being back in her arms, “that’s all I could think when I saw the photo, that I wish I could kiss you here, see all these beautiful thing pale in comparison.”

Her voice changes at the suggestion, that’s the only hint he gets that she’s reciting something from memory.

> _Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre_  
_If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame,_  
_If we skip the Champs Elysées_  
_And remain here in this sleazy_  
_Old hotel room_  
_Doing this and that_

“What?” he asks, conscious of how a yawn makes him sound funny, and he can hear her smile in her tone.

“Go to sleep, husband. I'll have you back with me soon enough.”

So he does, with half a mind to ask her to recite poetry more often, when he can have her lips brushing against the shell of his ear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poems and paintings in order are:
> 
> Pablo Neruda's Sonnet 22 in the summary
> 
> Patroclus to Achilles by Caitlyn Siehl (though it's technically missing a line between the first two)  
Le jardin à Bougival by Berthe Morisot in the Musée Marmottan Monet  
Love + Sex addiction by Sam Sax  
La mer orageuse by Gustave Courbet in the Musée d'Orsay  
Seule by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec also in the d'Orsay  
Love of the Wolf by Hélène Cixous  
Le Baiser de l'Hôtel de Ville by Robert Doisneau, original kept as part of the private collection of the Atelier Doisneau  
and last but not least: In Paris With You by James Fenton which pretty much inspired this entire mess


	4. moment's silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one thing Jumin can never take his wife enough for giving him, is the space to work though his fears.

There’s tension in the air, the nervous swishing of a tail in the corner, elbows on the kitchen island and the head Jumin loves more than anything buried in his wife’s hands.

Jumin isn’t exactly used to having his decisions contested, so the possibility of it doesn’t worry him; it didn’t even cross his mind when he called to arrange a violin quartet for the next RFA party, it didn’t even exist as something he should consider until right now.

And right now it’s a fight, of sorts.

They don’t ever really fight –there’s no reason to, he’ll give her anything, whatever she asks for–, and their last argument was so long ago that Jumin is a little lost at the moment, terrified by the silence.

“I thought it would suit the atmosphere better than to have Zen perform,” he offers, staring at the top of her head, at how her hair moves with her, shifts with the deep sigh that deflates her.

“I know you did, I _know _you think he’s too flashy,” she finally looks up, sounds tired down to the bone, “the director of this play he’s been aching to be in does too, that’s the whole point. We’ve been tweaking this set for _so_ long to prove he can be understated.”

It would have killed Jumin once, to see her turn away, but now he’s aware she’s only pouring herself a cup of coffee, not running from him.

“I trust Zen’s talent, Jumin,” she adds, brows knit, “I trust how much he wants this, and it can help his career. Isn’t that what the party is for after all? Helping?”

The last comment almost makes him wince. If he had to pick a word to describe her, this heart he adores, understanding would rank pretty high, if not first. She gives him so much leeway, lets him reach a middle ground in his own time, that he still forgets she isn’t a mirror of him.

Jumin frowns too, but it’s more self recriminating than anything else, reaches for her –conscious of last time, forever too raw to forget it–, and feels the tension leave him in a big exhale when she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move away from his hand as it cups the back of her head.

“It felt like you didn’t trust my judgment too, you know?” her confession is a whisper, her eyes steady on his.

“I’m sorry,” he says and it’s true, so much that it threatens to break him apart, “I tried to make planning easier for you and only added stress.”

His fingers drift slowly down her neck, as gently as he can manage without letting go of her, and he doesn’t try to pull her in, just leans in himself, slowly, to kiss her so softly that she could avoid it by tilting her face by a hairsbreadth. She presses back instead, sighs against him too.

“I’ll cancel the quartet.”

Jumin mumbles, trying not to lose the word in another kiss, but she’s ahead of him, always is.

“Already did,” she laughs, a little hysterically, a little too tired.

Hours later, when she can finally turn her phone off for the night and Jumin has her for himself in the post shower haze of steam –her skin almost feverish on his and her hands so tight on his forearm that the tips of her fingers turn pale as he thrusts into her, careful not to slam her hips against the counter–, he considers this one of the most important things she’s ever given him: the simple trust of being here.

Jumin sighs at how she leans into the hand that hover by her throat, not holding, not grabbing, just there as she sags forward into the support of his palm.

She laughs, breathless between soft whispers of his name and his entire body tenses up, he’s so hard it makes him dizzy just to be inside her. So he freezes, relishes how her voice turns to whines, nuzzles the back of her neck.

“I love you,” Jumin chokes out, his cock throbbing painfully even if he’s not moving at all; he simply stands there, feels her tighten around him.

“I love you too,” it’s desperate, her hand dropping from his skin to rub at her clit, and her words are followed by that way she breaks his name into bite sized syllables.

_‘Ju- min’._

It’s a miracle to hear it every time, a confirmation that it’s him, only him that gets to see her like this, mouth slowly stretching into a smile, brows pinched together and thighs shaking as she comes.

He’s dragged to join her and he’s almost sorry for it, but he can’t help the rubber band snap of tension, the stutter of his heart.


	5. café

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jumin is a very private person, but that doesn't mean he doesn't like to show off once in a while.

This is the kind of thing you remember in pieces, she thinks, like bold strokes of cream and pink. The vibrant green of the patio plants and soft caramel of the milk coffee she’s being very careful about _sipping, _no matter how good it is.

The _ladies_ who invited her to this lunch laugh at something she doesn’t quite catch, a gentle shuffle of pastel dresses. Casual isn’t the same when it comes to this world, apparently. These women are dressed for a completely different event than her, some in ruffles and some in lace detailing, pretty little turns of knee length silk chiffon.

So, now she sits there, self-conscious in a simple sweater and a midi skirt; with the woman who might become the next Mrs. Han gently tapping the very tips of her fingers to her shoulder every time someone speaks in their general direction.

Her soon to be new mother in law makes a comment about how she’ll get used to these gatherings in no time, to a few good natured giggles. Even if, if one were to split hairs, she’s actually been subjected to more rounds of “how can these people judge me today” than Chairman Han’s new girlfriend. Enough for it to be old hand, to be honest. Enough to let her breathe around the benign condescension.

That’s another thing, she can’t blame anyone but herself for the way she’s spending the morning. She didn’t really need to be here, could’ve easily refused the invitation. Jumin had never cared about what these women thought of him; and she was completely sure that disregard extended to what they thought of her too.

Her husband was curious, though, about the new contender fighting for the Chairman’s heart. And it was Jumin’s silent worry, the gentle pinch of his brows that made her offer to be an undercover of sorts.

She’d do it again a thousand times if it meant being pulled against his chest one more time, her head cradled in his palms so he could kiss her sweet and slow.

The memory of just the night before, of the honey drip of Jumin’s affection, stretches so golden for a single moment, that she almost misses the sudden commotion by the entrance, the sudden rush of staff.

The concierge of the hotel walks double time behind a shock of dark fabric, a pressed suit like an ink blot in this cream and off white world.

“I’m afraid the ladies reserved our entire café, Mr. Han”

Jumin stands there as if summoned by her longing, calmly turning to finally address the frazzled man by his elbow.

“I’m aware, I’m just here to see my wife.”

His eyes sweep the patio only once before he finds her, and she’s not ashamed to admit that her first thought is that something’s wrong. She goes to him, magnet pulled, until she can see the mischief in his eyes clearly and reach for his hand.

“Is everything alright?” the question is a little warped by a smile she can’t help at the sight of him, at the relief of knowing nothing urgent brought him here.

“Yes,” Jumin readjusts her hold, slips his fingers between hers and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear with his free hand.

Like these ladies don’t exist, like the cushions and the greenery and the coffee are for them alone.

“I just missed you.”

He always does this, it’s a conclusion she reaches time and again. He makes everything else fall away, fills the world with nothing but him and the way he loves her.

Her husband who knows exactly what he’s doing, after years and years of giving these ladies, and their attempts to match make, the cold shoulder. He’s here to show off his happiness, and she’s more than glad to indulge him.

“I trust you won’t mind me joining you for a while.”

It’s not a question, no matter how politely it’s posited. Jumin’s aware that he won’t be turned away, even if there’s a few curious looks thrown his way; a couple of half scoffs, half chuckles floating about as the strain in the mood dissipates.

He doesn’t even bother to ask for a chair, just pulls one close himself to sit by her side and orders an espresso with the even tone she’s so used to hearing at business events. The shifts in his voice he saves for her, for leaning in close to whisper in her ear as he settles their still joined hands over the table for the world to see.

“Now I know why the heroes do this in dramas,” she can hear how much he’s enjoying himself in that sentence before he admits to it, “it’s fun.”

The rest of the table attempts to restart their conversation after the interruption, Chairman Han’s girlfriend makes some attempt at a lighthearted joke about having all husbands join next time. Not the worst bid for attention to be fair, she’s the sweetest of all possible Mrs. Hans either Jumin or her have met so far, and the ladies seem to move on to that line of conversation.

It’s just not their fault that she can’t pay attention at all with her husband so close and so determined to be his particular brand of playful.

“I didn’t realize I had to actually dress like they do in dramas, though,” she murmurs back, half listening to the ladies complain about their marital woes.

“You look beautiful in what you’re wearing.”

Jumin never hesitates to reassure her, and she’s about to call him out on it when she notices the way his eyes travel down. He drinks from his freshly arrived coffee to hide it but she can feel it as clear as his thumb drawing soft patterns over hers.

He follows the line of her neck, the rise and fall of her breathing; leaves that rhythm stuttering in his wake. He lingers on her legs as if the shape of them crossed under the skirt makes them all the more attractive, like he would like to run his palm over them instead, cup her knee the way he does in the backseat of the car sometimes.

He licks a stray drop of coffee of his bottom lip and chuckles quietly at the way she responds to him, looking for all the world like he’s about to kiss her again until someone addresses him directly.

“We never thought we’d get to have you for one of these lunch dates, Jumin,” the woman is old enough to forgive the familiarity, the disapproval she passes off like teasing.

“I have good reason to be here now,” he responds, smiles again over the rim of his cup, and never lets go of her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep feeling like these are becoming more and more like little snapshots and I'm not sure this is worth a chapter but I just love the idea of Jumin crashing a ladies lunch, lol.
> 
> The settling is vaguely based on the Café Laurent's patio in the Hotel d'Aubusson in Paris. And it's a café and not just a generic hotel space mostly because this fic is also a playlist and I wanted to keep with the one Piazzolla tango, one Hozier song scheme of the titles.


	6. movement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Jumin is just too fresh from a business trip to the coast, maybe love can feel like an open sea.

Some days the promise of gifts frankly slips Jumin’s mind, as the months go by together and he’s busy with work and life, and just _loving_ her.

Some others, like this early morning, he likes to take a minute to think about it; to imagine the moments of this marriage as little ferries he can watch bobbing away. An armada of small things he never thought he’d have.

His wife stirs beside him and this is all he could ask for, the way she curls in against him, a closing parenthesis. More than herself, more than Jumin, _them_. Jumin craves even the certainty that the feeling is too much, too intense. A frightening, wonderful thing. Deep, dark seas and quietly resilient little boats.

He mirrors her movements, reaches over to run a thumb over her cheek, and the world is soft in the half light of the closed curtains. He can’t see all of her under this dawn, but he can feel her and touch is a language she’s far more proficient in.

Which isn’t to say her words weren’t a shock from the start, but with time Jumin comes to know that her touch borders on unbelievable. It makes him jealous from time to time; when she hooks her hand gently on Luciel’s elbow at a party, like she’s anchoring a kite. When she reaches for Jihyun’s forearm over the table at supper, squeezing for a microsecond to get his attention when he’s too quiet.

It’s like she can feel the drifting of people, like she wants to remind them there’s a port they can always return to. And Jumin is forever caught in the middle point between admiration and the childish need to have her all to himself.

“Love…”

Her voice is tiny, sleep heavy and raspy, but her fingers wrap around his wrist as she nuzzles his pulse. A gesture so familiar, so natural –like it’s the only logical thing to do–, that it makes Jumin’s eyes sting with happy tears.

She moves, her own eyes still closed, and sighs against the pillow. Her hand’s an anchor, sliding slowly up Jumin’s arm, hooked on the crook of his elbow as she drags herself closer, tucks herself in his arms.

“My darling husband,” she laughs against the sensitive skin of his bicep, almost mouthing the words against the sleeve of his shirt.

Jumin can’t help but bend to kiss her then, to taste her smile directly, even if a drop ends up hitting her cheek and sliding shared between them; and her hands come up to cup his face just far enough for her to look at him without going cross eyed.

“Happy tears?”

He nods because he can’t do much more, just kiss her again, hold her closer and closer until she’s sitting over his hips in bed, giggling against his lips. It’s all he needs, to be honest, years of this, but he responds all the same to the slow dragging of her palm over the back of his neck. Jumin used to think of this as weakness, the ripening of tenderness into desire, the slipping of control into the blur of his own body asking for more, _now_.

She asks for more too, dips her fingertips under the edges of his clothes like she’s making sure she has permission to do this. Like Jumin doesn’t ache for the roll of her hips or the steady rhythm of her words, barely audible against his jaw, his neck.

“I love everything about you, you know?”

He groans at the open admission and keeps his hands on her as she leans back, to unbutton the shirt of his she insists on wearing to bed from time to time.

“Your hands most of all,” she grabs at them as she speaks, guides them until his palms meet her breasts, "sometimes I think I could recognize your touch anywhere, I don’t know if it’s even possible…”

“It is,” he interrupts, thought he doesn’t really know either. He simply wants to believe it, that he can touch her enough times to help her memorize it, the same way he tries to hold onto the details of her. He wants to think the opposite could be true too, that he can’t ever mistake the sensation of her skin under his, the goosebumps rising across her chest, so tempting that he has to press a kiss over the hollow of her throat.

She laughs at the feeling and Jumin joins in at the absurdity of his happiness. The man he was would’ve never let himself be careless enough —desperate enough—, to only manage to pull his erection out of his pants instead of fully undressing, just because he can't wait to feel her, to let her hands find him too.

It occurs to him that neither Luciel or Jihyun or anyone else can have this, no matter how many times she reaches for them. And a part of him feels a sort of guilt about it, about thinking of them while his wife works him into full hardness for her, as she slides forward and takes him inside slowly.

“My darling wife,” he mumbles, which makes her chuckle again, moving against him, holding him tight.

Jumin fights the impulse to thrust for another moment of this calm, of the simple act of being together. One more second of her hands brushing his hair back and smiling down at him like she doesn’t even have to think about it. Her contented hum travels all the way to his spine though, so he starts a pace as lazy as the morning. It doesn’t matter how much he tries to make this last, he doesn’t have to worry about her leaving him.

He closes his eyes and all he sees is open seas for a million more little occasions, swaying along with the gentle tide of his wife moving against him.


	7. c'est l'amour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get yourself a husband that can make a van Gogh look even better just by standing near it.

There are very few things she needs to feel bad about when it comes to her marriage, but she’s not gonna deny that she feels a little bit horrible right then. She should be happy that Jumin is so well regarded that people so easily flock around him, especially when this cocktail is in his honor. But she can’t help the nagging frustration to want her husband to be a tad less crowded, by women specifically, no matter how proudly he wears his ring.

It’s silly, she thinks, because her husband is the first one to flinch away from undesired attention. Still, she can’t help the tension that pulls at the base of her neck, so unintentional that it makes V laugh until he gives himself the hiccups every time he witnesses it.

_Maybe that’s why Jumin’s gift is this public._ The thought comes uninvited and she feels worse at doubting Jihyun’s intentions in putting together an entire art exhibition just for his best friend.

Her grimace melts into a smile when her husband catches her eyes across the gallery though, because he looks like he’s thinking something similar. He had said it too, in the car when they first got here: _I wish I could spend my birthday with you, just you._

His confession got a resigned kiss out of her, a chaste stolen second in the back seat. One she now wishes she could rewind, give it an encore in a low traffic hallway, maybe.

It’s a little maddening, loving him like this, like he’s a magnetic north all for herself. Circling the room with a giggle in her throat at the way he discreetly follows, angling his body to face her. Jumin smiles too, a quirk of that beloved mouth, an agreement to this game of sorts.

She does laugh then, under her breath and far too giddy. And she offers a polite nod to Jaehee and Yoosung as they stand by a Monet sunrise that she pretends to look at, too. True art appreciation would have to wait for another time, when she can’t feel her husband’s gaze on her back, her shoulders; following the lines of the dress they chose together.

For now, she listens for the silver lining of Jumin’s popularity. When he moves so does the sound of a few voices, so do the steps of heels and clinking of champagne flutes. Telltale enough that she turns just in time to catch him framed by golden wheat fields, a sea of brush strokes made more striking by the contrast of his hair.

He looks surprised for a moment before he chuckles, she can see the sudden movement of it so clearly that she almost swears she hears it, and someone in the audience must ask what Jumin finds so funny, because he looks away to dismiss them. A single blink that only lets her step two paintings away, but that’s all she needs to blend into another group.

She can’t ignore the canvas this time, if only because she’s pretty sure she’s seen Jumin in the exact pose more than once, in the privacy of their home. It’s a testament to V’s humor, to have picked this portrait; one of those rays of hope that make Jumin light up whenever he catches them.

But when she turns to scan the room for her husband, he’s nowhere to be seen. And he’s far faster than her, it seems. He’s not even nearby, though he’s shed the people around him along the way. She can recognize a few faces, track them like breadcrumbs in Jumin’s wake until she’s finally back in the gravity field of his eyes on her.

“You’ve found me,” he gives her a playful look, bending to gaze at her between the cupped palms of a sculpture, enormous marble hands that barely make contact, fingertips against fingertips.

“I’ve found one of your gifts, too.”

“Does it involve taking me back home?” his eyes peek over as he straightens up, but he makes no move to join her, “I would love to hold you close.”

Jumin pauses, opens and closes his own hands once or twice, as if he’s considering whether to voice what’s on his mind. So she leans in, far too close for appropriate gallery etiquette, so much that she’s almost touching the marble.

“I’d love to be inside you right now,” he finishes the thought and laughs under his breath again at the slow progression of surprise, disbelief and amusement her face goes through.

It’s a wonder whenever this happens, when Jumin indulges in what most people would consider ‘dirty talk’ but for him is just honesty. The idea is tempting, a simple phrase that brings the sound of his voice when he’s, as he puts it, _inside_ her; how it teeters off its normal steady cadence into groaning and sighing. Even his touch changes then, the way he holds her is as if he wants to wrap himself around her, like he needs every part of his skin to make contact. To be together in any way they can.

It makes her breath catch, there in the middle of the gallery, to think that she could press a single kiss to the pad of his thumb and watch as the gesture unwinds the Executive Director of C&R into just her husband. The man who comes with her name on his lips and her heart cupped gently between his fingers.

“Jumin!”

They both flinch at the sound of V’s greetings coming close, try not to make it look obvious as they let the poor statue breathe again. If Jihyun notices the edge of childish guilt in their smiles he doesn’t mention it, he just guides them both in the most unsubtle way towards the portrait, running commentary about the story of the painting as he goes.

Sure, a private celebration is an attractive thought; but if anyone asked her, the way all traces of tension leave Jumin’s shoulders when he sees the portrait, and the entire RFA herded in front of it, is the true gift of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back with more art nerdery!
> 
> both the Musée Marmottan Monet and the d'Orsay make a return appearance, with _Impression, soleil levant_ by Monet and the very mentioned portrait, _Pierre Auguste Renoir_ by Frédéric Bazille.
> 
> and both the golden wheat, which is _The Harvesters_ by Vincent Van Gogh and the statue of two right hands barely touching, _The Cathedral_ by Auguste Rodin, live in the Musée Rodin
> 
> also as a sort of birthday present i put together a playlist, where i attempt to streamline some of the music i usually listen to while writing for Jumin, if you want to check it out it's [here on spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1TIyk5ePEkQExLfIK5nX6P?si=b5YDaA1mRkS0k9unXt_HVA)


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